100 Designers Each Create a Wooden Toy Car

Don't waste these cars on your children: line them up on the shelf in your living room. One hundred designers each created a wooden toy car out of cedar, and what a wonderful collection they make.

Organized by an Italian father who wanted something lasting and meaningful for his children, Matteo Ragni came up with the idea of 100%tobeus. Everyone has a secret idea of the toy car that they would like to create. So he asked 100 famous Italian designers to each make a car out of one block of wood.

The remit was simple: each designer had to create the car out of a one size block of wood and they had to be entirely handmade. The wood was cedar of Lebanon: a dense and long-lasting wood with an aromatic smell which is supposed to ward off moths. The wheels are made of mahogany, a wood with a nice grain. No paints were used.

Barber & Osgerby: these boys are everywhere: fresh from designing the Olympic torch, here they are making toys. "Three.Two.One is designed to adapt to the three stages of childhood. A young child can play with the car by pushing it along. As the child grows, a balloon can be attached which can be inflated and released to create a self-propelled car. Finally, the car can be transformed into a racing car by adding a rocket engine to it. These adaptations allow the car to be kept by the same individual as they grow, until it’s time to pass it on to the next generation."

The Campana brothers are TreeHugger favourites: "The peculiar shape of the toy brings a unique aerodynamic profile and the sensation of increased movement when you are playing with it. This car also offers the possibility to imagine and experience again the world of a child."

Rashid explains: "What a fun project, and after designing about 10 little cars that were impossible to make, I developed this simpler funky icon car that can take the cut out icons and play with them as separate toys, and reverse them in the car so the car looks like it is exploding with iconic globalove."

(According to Google translation: A tray on the machine to move some objects, a gift or a cup of hot chocolate, to rescue an animal or to raise the favorite characters that can continue undisturbed their most important speeches.)